


to swallow the sun

by blood_and_gore



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Aromantic, Aromantic Character, M/M, Multi, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travelling Harry Potter, Time Travelling Hermione Granger, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, why isn't that a tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blood_and_gore/pseuds/blood_and_gore
Summary: It flashed through her mind, the events that led up to this: the Battle of Hogwarts, a few short years of peace, then the slow realization that the Death Eaters were not gone. That, in fact, Voldemort himself might not be.In retrospect, it was ridiculous that they'd all assumed there were only seven Horcruxes.Well, you know what they say: prevention is the best cure.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 64





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title idea: "Time Travel AU: Electric Boogaloo"
> 
> Yes, I know I need to update everything else. It's coming. Probably.

Magical funerals were ghastly, Hermione thought. (It was probably a bigoted and cruel thing to think, she acknowledged, but true nonetheless.)

Muggle funerals were easier; dressing in black or blue, white in some cultures. Reading a few words. Burying or burning the body. Maybe some music, or a poem, or a speech on some sort of art that the deceased liked. A memorial, perhaps. A religious service. If the casket was closed, it would perhaps be draped in flowing fabric; if open, the corpse would be smoothed down with makeup and formaldehyde.

Here, it was worse, to feel the flow of magic outward from the body as it was ritually accepted into the earth. The preservation charms that utterly failed to make what once was Ron look as if he was sleeping. If you looked at it the right way, you could sort of see the dent where the back of his skull had caved in.

Everyone wore varying shades of gray mixed with bloody, stupid Gryffindor red.

It flashed through her mind, the events that led up to this: the Battle of Hogwarts, the slow inorexable rebuilding, the connections that formed. A few short years of peace, punctuated by research projects once she joined the Unspeakables. Then, the slow realization throughout their society that the Death Eaters were not gone. That, in fact, Voldemort himself might not be.

In retrospect, it was ridiculous that they'd all assumed there were only seven Horcruxes. Dumbledore had not been foolproof, had proven so time and time again. Hermione had believed in him− childishly, perhaps, but she'd been a child!

Who knew how many more were out there? Seven times seven? Seven to the power of seven? Did the madman eventually forget the number theme he'd cared for in his youth, and continued to halve himself closer and closer into nothing?

.

When Voldemort came back, Harry was about ready to quit his job as an Auror. He had the Potter vaults. He could settle into a comfortable life of philanthropy; he could donate half his wealth and be just fine. Of course, he was Harry fucking Potter and apparently wasn't allowed to have anything resembling peace. Fine, whatever. Ron and he had restarted the efforts to round up the remaining Death Eaters. Luna and Draco and Hermione all contributed what research they could; perhaps they couldn't speak of their jobs (Draco's favorite pun) but they could still show him images, runes, letters.

The Horcrux search began anew. It did not go well; at first they tried Dumbledore's approach, looking at famous items that would have given Voldemort an ego boost. Zip, zilch, nada. Their first success was completely accidental, a test run of Luna's new detection ritual; a tiny pebble stuck halfway into the ground at a park in London. Muggle space. Public space. And that was when it really hit home that they had no idea what the Horcruxes could be. He cursed Dumbledore for his short-sightedness.

.

Luna's death was an accident. Rituals need sacrifices. They would never need to sacrifice again to cast the Horcrux-detection ritual; was it worth it, though?

Draco's death was a simple Avada at the hands of Petra Parkinson, shortly after the arrest of her older sister.

Ron's death was noted in the paperwork as collateral damage from the battle.

.

Voldemort was a disease. Hermione's parents' memories were long gone, but she remembered something they told her when she was a little girl flossing twice a day: prevention is the best cure.

And she did, after all, work in the Time Room.


	2. Recitative

They set up the ritual circle in the DoM's most secure room; the potential for some sort of blowback that might leave others behind was too risky for them to do it in one of the Time Room offices, and the prep work needed would need quite a lot of cleanup from those who were left behind. (Percy had volunteered.)

Harry carved runes (Futhark and Ogham, mostly, plus a few he didn't recognize) and a few specific sigils into the walls, floor, and ceiling. He painted them in a dark red-brown paint that Hermione provided in a vat the size of a small child; it smelled of iron. He didn't ask if there was blood in it, didn't ask what or who the blood might be from.

They'd been in the vigilantism phase of things for several months now, after all, and she'd mentioned taking down another Death Eater a few days ago.

.

In retrospect, they should have known something was wrong when the runes started burning. They weren't supposed to do that. They should have continued to hold until the end of the chant, then gradually faded, the paint dissipating and the carvings closing up like nothing had been there, followed shortly by Harry and Hermione disappearing off into the winds of time.

Rituals that were meant to create large changes in reality had to be anchored to one or more classical elements; they'd chosen air as it worked best with the planetary transits. Sun and most of the planets in Aquarius, moon in Gemini. The imagery Hermione had chosen was of the two of them moving fluidly through time as if it was nothing more than air.

Instead, the runes lit on fire.

.

They chanted more quickly. The runes burned more quickly. Impossibly, the fire spread from the runes− first, a tongue of flame reaching from a _jera_ to the wall, next the ceiling. The hourglass shattered, at least seven minutes ahead of schedule. Harry stepped into the smaller circle.

Half the runes exploded, and it was all Hermione could do to throw herself in after him.


	3. Molto Allegro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're gonna get a couple more chapters of Hermione POV before I tell you where (when) Harry is.

Hermione awoke to dull throbbing pain pretty much everywhere. For a moment, it was all she could process, before her eyes adjusted. Bright light. White ceiling. Soft sheets over her body− something she hadn't felt in quite some time.

"Awake now, love?"

Hermione squinted up at the woman. "Where am I?"

"Yes, I suppose you'd want to know that. You're in the infirmary at Hogwarts− you were found at the edge of the grounds in quite a state. Do you remember what happened?"

She shrugged. "Was anyone else with me?"

"No, no one. Was someone with you?"

Hermione shut her eyes.

.

She did not speak to the woman (Madam Diggory, the Hogwarts school nurse) about how she'd come to be found laying on the ground covered in burns, citing amnesia and a possible battle with Grindelwald's forces.

Yeah. She hadn't arrived in 1927, and Harry hadn't landed with her. Instead, she was stuck in the summer of 1941 and completely alone.

On the bright side, the papers she'd sent through had arrived.

.

Of course, it was just her luck that she'd been found by bloody fucking goddamn Dumbledore.

"My dear, I'm pleased to tell you on Headmaster Dippet's behalf that you've been accepted for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Although of course the Unspeakables could not tell me much about your work history, clearly you're qualified..." Blah blah blah. She hoped they'd be in touch soon. She hoped Harry was all right.

"And it was simply fortuitous that you arrived at such a time, although of course not that you arrived in the state you did. Of course, I'm aware that the role Unspeakables play in wars is not something I might know at this time, and I do promise not to ask much." This little speech was finished with a genial chuckle and twinkly eyes. She wondered when he'd learned to do that.

It wasn't a moment too soon when Madam Diggory shooed him out with a harrumph about patients needing to rest.

.

Idly, Hermione wondered if Madam Diggory was Cedric's grandmother or great-grandmother or perhaps an aunt. She supposed she'd meet quite a few of her classmates' progenitors; Abraxas Malfoy, certainly, she knew he'd been in the same year as Riddle. (She hoped he wasn't as insufferable as Draco had been in school.) One of the Notts?

She wondered if the little fucker was already building up his little kingdom of evil. Had he already taken advantage of the blood politics, made the allies who'd become Death Eaters? Would she have to kill them too?

The original plan had been for Harry and Hermione to murder Tom, then take jobs as Defense and Charms professors. Obviously, they'd somehow been separated, but her letters had still arrived. The Unspeakables would verify them if asked; procedures were in place for helping stranded time travelers. That was something at least.


End file.
